Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is mulling over developing various planned storage facilities of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) across the country by adopting Japanese technology.

After a few Japanese companies expressed interest to construct LPG storage plants for Nepal, a high-level team of NOC led by its Managing Director Gopal Bahadur Khadka left for Japan on Thursday to study Japanese LPG storage technology and its prospects and implications in Nepal.

“The NOC team is scheduled to visit different LPG companies in Japan and study the technology used by Japanese oil companies for storage of petroleum products, including LPG storage,” said

Sitaram Pokharel, spokesperson for NOC.

NOC is mulling over using Japanese technology to develop LPG storage facilities especially because both countries are prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters. “As Nepal too is prone to earthquakes and other natural calamities, Japanese technology used in LPG storage can best suit Nepal,” added Pokharel.

Moreover, a Japanese firm — Cosmos Engineering Co (CEC) Ltd — had proposed the government to introduce LPG Storage Facilities Project in Nepal in March. However, the government is yet to give a go-ahead to this project.

Under this project, the Japanese company had expressed interest to offer technical support and expertise to Nepal to develop high-tech LPG storage plants. Submitting its report to the Ministry of Industry, the company had stressed the need to construct LPG storage plants in Nepal which are similar to those in Japan citing that Japanese LPG storage plants can withstand natural disasters similar to those that are prone in Nepal.

As per Pokharel, NOC will start the process to sign an agreement with one of the Japanese companies to start construction of LPG storage facilities in Nepal based on the recommendation of the NOC team, which is currently in Japan.

Lately, NOC has been prioritising increasing the storage capacity of LPG and other petroleum products to ensure their easy supply during hard times.

It has planned to develop LPG storage facilities in Dhanusha, Jhapa, Kavre and Nawalparasi districts and has started the land acquisition process.

Nepal does not have LPG storage facility while the country has capacity to store only 71,000 kilolitres of petrol and diesel which can cater to the domestic demand for less than one week.

A version of this article appears in print on July 08, 2017 of The Himalayan Times.

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